policy presidents in part because they have so much more leeway. but for barack obama, i think this happened early. >> today, we got the obama plan for leaving iraq... >> president obama announced the current phase of the war is coming to an end... >> narrator: early on, obama had set a timetable for withdrawing troops from iraq. >> within 19 months... >> he came into office promising to get out of iraq. his rise had a lot to do with his opposition to the iraq war. and i don't think he ever looked back. >> narrator: but there was another, secret side to obama's approach to the world. candidate obama had been critical of much of the bush administration's top secret war on terror. as president, it was a different story. >> his people made it clear that in the terrorism arena, he was going to be as tough if not tougher than the bush people. he was going to be extraordinarily aggressive. he and his people reviewed all existing ongoing cia covert operations and with the exception of aggressive interrogations, endorsed all of them, and doubled down on a